Student newspaper uncovers why popular Utah teacher was terminated

by Dan Rascon

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A very popular High School teacher who has shown up in a variety of news stories over the years because of his accomplishments including saving a student’s life in class, is now being investigated on allegations of inappropriate texting with a student.

Ryan White was let go back in November after teaching at Herriman High for three years.

Unified Police say the girl, who was under 18 years old at the time, graduated last year.

Police say the parents came to them back in September. “The parents had intercepted some text communication between the student and the teacher at Herriman High School,” Lt. Brian Lohrke said.

Lohrke says investigators are still in the interviewing process to determine if charges will be filed.

Turns out the case was uncovered by two students with the schools newspaper, The Telegraph, after they started to hear rumors about why White was not teaching anymore.

They started to do some serious digging and GRAMA requested documents from the Jordan School District and found out that he had been let go. However the reason why was not released.

“Part of the reason why we started following this is because the teacher was not going to let anyone know. We felt that people deserved to know,” Conor Spahr, student editor for The Telegraph, said. “I think it’s important for teachers and students to find out what’s going on at their school”

“I was shocked about how deep some of this went at first we were just trying to find out what happened to one of our favorite teachers,” Max Gordon, student editor and chief for the paper, said.

2News went to Whites home and he told Dan Rascon that he didn’t want to talk about the allegations, “I hope the truth comes out and no comment from there,” said White to Rascon.

Before White came to Herriman High he was a teacher for three years at Providence Hall Charter School in Herriman. According School to documents he was terminated in 2014.

Administrators could not say why he was let go because of personnel issues.

The Jordan School District could also not comment about Whites hiring or termination but spokesperson Sandy Riesgraf says the policy is that they would never hire a teacher without a thorough background check and reference checks.

Spahr and Gordon say right now they are trying to get school approval to print their story in the next edition of The Telegraph.